Something that’ll lead to fairly flippant, casual, low-stakes chit chat about completely unimportant bullshit. People like getting a chance to get a sort of baseline reading of you, so talk about flippant, dumb, unimportant things for a little bit. Preferably ones that they are 100% certain to have recently experienced themselves, so it can go back and forth smoothly.
Given the diversity of humanity, this is a fairly short list. Weather, food, free time hobbies, etc. If they’re like a student, or work in a particular industry, that opens up a lot of options. But for a stranger? Just got a few to pick from. So, just pick one.
They call it “small talk” for a reason though. The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
That makes it really confusing. What’s a good question, then? Ask about the weather?
Honestly? The weakness of the standard small talk topics is how common and banal they are, which bores people. I recommend them because they’re so easy, and the cost of boring people for a few minutes is fairly small.
But it’s not ideal. For ideal you need something flippant, unimportant but also novel. Since novelty is now valued though, that means you can’t be using the same thing over and over. Other people will probably have used it too, if it works, and that means its not novel.
So, the actual best ice-breaker topic? Some clever, interesting or amusing observation about something in your immediate environment that you can both look at. That adds thinking on your feet to the mix though, so is more of an intermediate level of social skill. Best to have the boring fundamentals nailed down first.
So, yeah, I’m perfectly comfortable leaning on something as dull as the weather. And it makes decent enough practice at chit chatting. But eventually picking more novel subjects that also fit the requirements is better.
The actual question would usually go something like “Hey, did you see that?”
Who are you?
Do you like getting your asshole licked by a fat man in an overcoat?
The most stupidly obvious question: “please tell me as much as you can about yourself”
My go to is “how was your weekend?” Hopefully they’ll drop enough information that you can turn it into a conversation.
It usually ends in awkward silence. 🤐
I hate when people ask me this because either it makes me think about how I didn’t get to what I wanted on the weekend, or how I was depressed over the weekend… On a good day the problem is that I mostly like to keep my hobbies and personal life to myself. I guess I’m probably hard to get to know 😅.
I know what you mean.
I started doing it because I noticed that I felt lonely at work, so I put an effort into small talk and making myself a bit more available. Part of that involved being more open about my hobbies and free time. It was worth it for me.
I had an acquaintance that started following hockey solely so she would have a conversation starter. I don’t have that kind of commitment, so I just do the weekend thing.
I kind of hate when people ask my things like that because I often had a fun weekend but now can’t remember what all I did so I have to stop and remember for a while before answering, so I usually just say it was nice and hope they don’t ask for more details.
Eh. Yeah. I don’t usually have a lot in common with people, so I try to find some common ground that can start a conversation. I’m not very good at noticing what people like/do, so this gets a conversation moving.
I also forget my weekends. Which turns into a topic of conversation too. 😬
